Obama Rejects Responsibility For Trump: ‘Majority’ Of Americans Agree With Me

President Barack Obama gestures during a joint news conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at Maximos Mansion in Athens, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) )

President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he doesn’t feel any responsibility for Donald Trump’s election and questioned the logic of reading too much into election results.

At a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens, NBC’s Chris Jansing referenced a question Matt Lauer asked Obama months ago as to whether he personally felt “any responsibility for the election of Donald Trump.”

“And in the broader context, when you see his election, when you look at politicians, like Theresa May, Marie Le Pen, do you believe it is a movement away from or a rejection of your worldwide view?” she continued.

“Well, first of all, I think it’s fair to say I was surprised by the election results,” Obama began. “And I’ve said so. I still don’t feel responsibility for what the President-elect says or does. But I do feel responsibility as President of the United States to make sure I facilitate a good transition.”

Obama was quick to separate the Le Pen, a French ultra-nationalist, and Theresa May, the current British Prime Minister, who he called “a fairly transitional conservative politician.”

He then rebuffed Jansing’s premise and defended his legacy.

“Last I checked, a pretty healthy majority of the American people agree with my world view on a whole bunch of things,” Obama said.

“I know that begs the question: ‘Well, how is it that somebody who appears to have a very different worldview just got elected?'” he continued. “As I said, sometimes people just feel as if we want to try something to see if we can shake things up and that I suspect was a significant phenomena.”

55
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. How is it his fault the voters are stupid?

  2. HOLY FUCKING SHIT that’s a dumb question!!!

    Just when I think the media couldn’t get any lower, after they enabled and paved the way for a Trump victory, they go ahead and ask some dumbass question like this.

    The only even remotely plausible line of this question is that it’s Obama’s fault that people who wound up as Trump supporters reacted to him in racist and vile ways?! Are you fucking kidding me?! How is this journalism?!

  3. Avatar for cmj cmj says:

    this is just absolutely ridiculous. I have seen NUMEROUS people now question POTUS more about Trump and responsibility for him, his actions and words, and his campaign MORE THAN TRUMP.

    JFC. DO YOUR JOB MEDIA.

  4. They are…and they are VERY good at it. They just happen to have a very VERY different view of what their job constitutes than what their journalism classes taught them.

  5. It’s not a question. It’s a GOP talking point posed as a question. It started with Matt Lauer for crying out loud.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

49 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for tonnyb Avatar for pluckyinky Avatar for richardinjax Avatar for sysprog Avatar for ajileye Avatar for clemmers Avatar for theod Avatar for randyabraham Avatar for inversion Avatar for sniffit Avatar for faboofour Avatar for okay Avatar for lastroth Avatar for boidster Avatar for cmj Avatar for quax Avatar for dickweed Avatar for tena Avatar for randybastard Avatar for just_observing Avatar for ncgirl741 Avatar for babble Avatar for aiddon

Continue Discussion